Frameworks in teaching

Abstract

Software reuse is important in modern software engineering to ensure high quality software while keeping cost down. Software reuse is therefore an important topic in teaching. This chapter discusses issues relating to teaching object-oriented frameworks that represent a central technique for software reuse. We present concrete techniques for teaching the topic at both introductory and advanced programming level and convey our experiences. At the introductory level we discuss a simple yet powerful framework, Presenter, that serves as a first introduction to programming using frameworks as well as a gentle introduction to the more complex topic of graphical user interface frameworks like Java AWT and Swing. At the advanced level we discuss a complex framework, JHotDraw, that both serves to demonstrate concepts and techniques used in complex frameworks, as well as demonstrate how design patterns are combined in object-oriented frameworks. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.